In Response to Re: NFLPA Vs NFL.. where do you stand? : Where did the subject of football go?

When the CBA is being renegotiated football and finance are the same subject.

The (about 15 year) baby boomer generation actually reached the average retirement age last year, so if their will be a retirement crisis it could be sooner than what you have mentioned. A good majority of the 17$ trillion in retirement plans are in that generation however.

The crisis may well come earlier. According to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, though, the typical 55 to 64 year old has just $78,000 in their 401(k) plan. That's pretty inadequate.

Additionally, why do you think most people have retirement plans that are not sufficient? They were taught to rely on social security, a social program that is nothing like it was when created today. Like most social programs, it has proven to become a financial and economic burden while enabling people to rely on inefficient government programs.

Well, actually people used to rely mostly on their private-sector employer for retirement benefits. In the absence of decent private-sector benefits it's a good thing we have Social Security. We should do what we can to shore it up and preserve it.

There are also plenty of pensions that still exist for current retirees, there just wont be any for retirees in 20 years, as you mentioned.

One reason I think the crisis is still a little down the road.

The main problem is that +70% of U.S. pensions are under-funded. If they are 80% under-funded the regulations disallow 50% of the employees lump sum option. 60% disallows the entire amount.

Yes, unfortunately the regulators allowed companies to use far too aggressive pension-funding assumptions, so companies stopped putting in enough to buffer against market declines like we had in 2007.

I think you'll start seeing people be more aggressive with their 401Ks, where before when you landed a solid job out of college, you were probably conservative thinking you had time to build it and then invest at some point elsehwere when you could. Bottom line, the world is clearly changing on multiple levels and has been a long time coming. The days of working at the Ford plant and being promoted for good, hard work are over. Long over. And anything tied to the old school models are also likely to keep falling by the wayside. Posted by BBReigns

Rusty . . . I actually think the future needs something different from either traditional employer-sponsored defined benefit plans or 401(k) plans (which are now not "new" either). Not going to get into it here (it's getting a little too far off topic), but we've got a system where none of the employer-sponsored, government-sponsored, or personal plans are working as well as they need to be for typical workers. We need to fix that because the alternative--a lot of old people without incomes--really isn't highly desirable.

Funny, the poll results indicate we like/support the owners. However, we don't root for the owners when they don't play the game, we root for the players when they do. Owners make BIG money on this "thing of ours" and yet we begrudge the players what amounts to a pittance by comparison, because ostensibly they make so much more than we do??? What does this say about us the fans? In my opinion, what it says is not good. Its sort of like the crowd in the Roman coliseum calling for the death of the defeated.

Most players in the NFL do not make the big money. They make a couple of hundred thou. on average and we seem to think that is too much money for people to make playing a violent game that ruins your health and may shorten you r life. Yea fans!!!!!!!

Oh! And I don't give a good G. D. about the owners risks, they all make money, big, big money. If they didn't they would not be owners, they would invest elsewhere. Look at Robert Kraft, he owns the stadium and all of its revenue, he has a mall there and God knows what else that adds to the revenue stream and finally his share of the TV money. He isn't running a charity, its a business and he will do anything he can to maximize his profits, anything and you can bet that there is indeed, very substantial profit.

In Response to Re: NFLPA Vs NFL.. where do you stand? : When the CBA is being renegotiated football and finance are the same subject. The crisis may well come earlier. According to the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, though, the typical 55 to 64 year old has just $78,000 in their 401(k) plan. That's pretty inadequate. Well, actually people used to rely mostly on their private-sector employer for retirement benefits. In the absence of decent private-sector benefits it's a good thing we have Social Security. We should do what we can to shore it up and preserve it. One reason I think the crisis is still a little down the road. Yes, unfortunately the regulators allowed companies to use far too aggressive pension-funding assumptions, so companies stopped putting in enough to buffer against market declines like we had in 2007. Sure . . .Posted by prolate0spheroid

I think that 78k number is a bit skewed from outliers who don't have any retirement assets. I may be wrong but I work with advisors and retirees all around the country every day and most seem to be at least above 150k... Not that 150k is sufficient. I am not an advisor, I am a CPA, but I see a lot of this..

Your right on the pension stuff of course, but a ton of people complain about their reliance on social security and how they were taught they didnt have to save... I am still much younger than having to retire and I max our 401k's and invest the rest in passive activities for the reason were discussing (not that you care), but much of the younger generations still don't do this. I know plenty of 20 something year olds making 6 figures and barely putting 6% away. People also didn't expect social security benefits to be taxable and so forth, basically penalizing them for working during retirement..

Anyways, anyone can take any stance on the care of players after they retire.. Pensions, medical etc..

You would think that controlling rookie wage scales could help, as well as putting together additional required educational platforms for behavioral finance. These guys don't have a clue, they were not raised to handle millions apropriately, in most cases.

In Response to Re: NFLPA Vs NFL.. where do you stand? : I think that 78k number is a bit skewed from outliers who don't have any retirement assets. I may be wrong but I work with advisors and retirees all around the country every day and most seem to be at least above 150k... Not that 150k is sufficient. Posted by j24m1

It's hard to find good numbers. A lot of the mutual fund companies and benefit consulting firms put out numbers, but they often report averages for all participants rather than medians for people at retirement age. The figure I quoted is actually based on a 2007 federal reserve study, but it isn't clear exactly how they derived the number. Ideally, retirees should have savings (in their 401(k) or otherwise) of about 14 or 15 times their annual income at their retirement date, so if the plans were working we'd see balances in the range of $800,000 to $2,000,000 for typical retirees in their mid sixties. Whatever the real number is, it's nowhere near that for "typical" 60-year olds!

Oh well, we won't solve this problem here, will we? . . . and we probably should get back to football . . . but it's nice to hear a comment from someone who really knows something about these issues . . . thanks! I agree with you that more financial education is desperately needed in this country--and not just for football players!

I think the player's think they're playing baseball. Baseball has 162 games (81 at home) where the owners can make revenue. Compare that to the 8 games football owners can make money off of (and all the concessions as well!) and there is a big disparity. The players have to realize this isn't as big a money maker as they think.